If you have Gmail, then your inbox just got more visual! You may have noticed that Google has made some updates to their Gmail Promotions Tab recently that allow for marketers to display their deals and discounts in a way that may have a better chance at grabbing subscriber’s attention. Visuals for Your Gmail Promo Tab This update is also geared to adding value in an efficient way to your subscriber’s inbox. Here’s how the update works: Gmail already uses machine learning to identify what it considers to be […]

Your website and email strategies support each other. One of your website tasks is growing your email list – with email signup forms, gated content, etc. – while your targeted email campaigns drive traffic, engagement and transactions back on the website. Without mutual support and close integration, they’re not as successful. To give you some examples – here are 10 specific ways they can integrate to grow your audience, drive more impact and create efficiency. Automated Content Distribution If you have regular communications going out with the same […]

As marketers, one of the biggest challenges we face is proving the ROI of our marketing initiatives. Marketing has evolved. More and more, marketing should be viewed as an investment in business growth rather than an expense that is a “cost of doing business.” The data we can collect from our marketing efforts, both online and offline, can help us to provide more and more insight into the ROI of our marketing initiatives. How do we make that transition from marketing as an expense to marketing as an investment […]

We’re all about easy—this running list is designed to be your go-to cheat sheet for the latest email designs by the numbers. Bookmark this page as you plan out your next email campaigns. What’s the Best Width for an Email? If you want a safe bet, shoot for 600 pixels. 600 pixels is the standard width for email, and while there are exceptions (including options that allow for up to 960 pixels), 600px will keep you well within the bounds of the majority of inboxes. If you want to […]

You know the stereotype: in a number of organizations, Marketing is a cost center. It’s the department of pretty pictures and branding campaigns. The department where budget goes to disappear. But marketers, we know that’s not true. We’re measuring, we’re influencing, and we’re driving in tons of opportunity. The problem isn’t that we’re a cost center; it’s that we’re not very good at telling our impact story. The good news is we can beat the perception of Marketing as a cost center by better using our CRM systems—all […]

Don’t have email addresses for everyone on your marketing list? Try adding LinkedIn’s Sponsored InMail as a touchpoint to your next campaign. How Sponsored InMail Works Sponsored InMail offers a great way to digitally reach prospects outside of the email inbox. Sponsored InMail delivers a message you create—much like a standard LinkedIn message—to the LinkedIn inbox of your selection or your targeting. It’s like sending an email to someone, except you don’t have to have that person’s email address for the message to reach them. Setting Sponsored InMail […]

Re-building websites costs money and time. The trick to approval is justifying the expense. It has been my experience that rarely is the decision to rebuild a website up to one person. That being said, since different internal team members will need to be excited and inspired by the idea to rebuild, you will want to share different customized ROI stories. It would be smart to start with crafting a few ways that you see the website redesign benefiting the company and then tell the right story to the right […]

On November 1st, I will be a part of a 3 person panel at SEMPO Cities KC on the topic of Exploding ROI with Paid Search. As a precursor to this presentation (note to self: work on this presentation!), I wanted to share a few thoughts on what is working in Paid Search…and Paid Social. The reality of online advertising, in my opinion, is that getting yourself stuck in one channel is similar to the idea of putting too much of your investments into a single stock or group of […]

It’s only the single most critical shopping day of the year. We’re either the shoppers fighting crowds to catch the best deals to fulfill our holiday shopping lists, or we’re the marketers behind the scenes creating the strategies that get them buying! 2017’s Black Friday represented 4.6% of revenue for the entire year’s sales, and this year, sales are projected to be better than ever. It’s important to prepare ahead of time for what’s to come, and to ensure you stand out from the competition. That’s where a […]

LinkedIn has completely overhaled their LinkedIn Group’s experience, and I have to say that I am loving it. Back in February, LinkedIn completely scrapped their standalone Groups app, in an effort to reintegrate it back into the core user experience of the platform. Last month LinkedIn introduced their new and improved Groups experience and here is what you can expect to see, according to LinkedIn group director of product Mitali Pattnaik: Enhanced group participation Group activity notifications Access anytime, anywhere Check out all of the exciting details that […]

By now you’ve mastered the art of sending a weekly newsletter to your entire subscriber list. Your newsletter is an easy to read email that has established and maintained customer-brand relationships directing traffic to your website ­­– each section of the email dedicated to a particular topic (read more about the elements of a successful newsletter here). But what happens when your newsletter’s open rate starts to decline and you realize that your audience isn’t all the same, therefore should not be targeted the same? How do you use email […]

As a digital marketing agency, we are highly focused on identifying strategies and tactics that will work to drive further engagement and conversion online. We love digital because of the high level of “measurability” we have when it comes to monitoring the tactics that we deploy. However, we also know that most businesses rely to some degree on their offline footprint to drive ongoing engagement beyond the typical digital channels like search, email, and social media. That’s where offline to online ad targeting comes in handy. These business that […]

Every salesperson wants things right now, whether that’s quality leads, effective marketing materials, pricing or contract concessions. Whatever is needed to close more deals, reach their goals, earn more commission. As marketers, we know that the problem is, not every prospect or client, even if showing initial interest, is on their same timetable. They may not have a big enough need to make a purchase right now. Or maybe they’re under contract, satisfied with their current vendor, other projects are taking priority, currently have no budget—or it’s simply taking them […]

First impressions are everything. That first point of contact is your chance as a brand to really shine and impress current and/or future customers. That’s why a welcome email series is so important to have in place! In this blog post, I’m going to cover some of the best practices and most compelling (if not obvious) reasons why you should be incorporating a welcome email series into your new customer or lead acquisition strategy. Be Prompt with Your Welcome Email Don’t keep people waiting. I recommend sending your welcome […]

So you’ve got a new product to add to your ecommerce shop. That means it’s time to put together a marketing plan for your new ecommerce product launch. Adding a new product to your ecommerce shop deserves a marketing plan of its own—one that’s not quite as involved as when you launched your shop in the first place, perhaps, but is still informed by the data you’ve managed to capture about your customers along the way. In this post, we’ll use the emfluence t-shirt shop to demonstrate how we’re […]

It’s not uncommon for me to hear marketers ask the question: how do I start building a marketing plan—and how do I know if the dollars I’m asking for are the right amount? A better marketing plan starts with understanding your marketing metrics. By learning what’s working now, you can start to plan for campaign spending in the future. But first, you need to learn: How to efficiently use your marketing spend How to maximize your budget across multiple marketing channels and business segments How to ensure stakeholders feel […]

Email personalization continues to be a top email design trend. And with more marketers putting an emphasis on data quality, there are many opportunities for maximizing the impact of personalized messaging. Beyond incorporating first name variables into the subject line or body to boost engagement, brands can use personalization to serve the subscriber. If the data is accurate, timely, and serves a purpose, it’s likely to benefit the subscriber in ways that are advantageous for the brand. Here are a few examples from my inbox of ways brands used personalization […]

SEO can boost your marketing automation efforts in these three ways: Build leads and lists through qualified organic traffic Utilize existing organic data to optimize conversion points Use keyword research to send targeted content to specific lists Click on the links above to jump to that section. I recently discussed this topic at the And Then Some emfluence Conference 2018. Here is the video and SlideShare of my talk: How SEO Can Boost Your Marketing Automation Efforts from emfluence But if you’re more into reading/scanning, the meat of the […]

You know the value in attending the emfluence And Then Some Conference. But how do you relay that effectively when asking for your company’s support in sending you? Getting time off and budget approval can be a real challenge sometimes, so here are three things you can share with the budget-boss in your life to help elicit a successful send-off: It’s designed to enhance your skillset. It presents an opportunity to connect with Kansas City’s brightest digital marketing minds and a variety of local, regional and national organizations. You’ll be […]

Let’s talk retention! So, you’ve put in all the groundwork to attract your “ideal” customer base – these are the customers who will get the most value from the product or service you’re selling. So now what? Retention efforts begin with activation and follow-up, ensuring these customers become active users and continue to do business with you. I’m going to share the 5 best email marketing strategies that will help you increase your retention rates and bring in more revenue: Customer Retention Email Strategy #1: The Activation or Welcome […]

Summer is in full effect, which means it’s time to take a breather from those out-of-office replies and take a look at email marketing benchmarks for the first half of 2018. If this is your first Email Marketing Benchmarks Report, this is our twice-yearly dive into the email marketing metrics compiled by the global users of the emfluence Marketing Platform. These email marketing benchmarks are designed to give you a starting point for comparing your own email marketing metrics. You’ll be able to scroll through comparison metrics based on industries, […]

In a previous blog post, I talked about how to build a social media strategy for ecommerce sales, however my main focus in that post was only on B2C brands. So today, I want to solely turn my attention to B2B ecommerce and why it is just as important for them to have a well thought out social media strategy to help drive brand awareness and increase their B2B ecommerce sales. First, let’s start by saying that ecommerce is not limited to B2C. If you’re in B2B and you […]

For the past several years, Google has been pushing site security to webmasters. HTTPS has been an organic ranking signal since at least 2014. When browsing on an HTTP website, instead of HTTPS, a third-party can insert ads that aren’t on the original webpage, inject cryptocurrency mining software (here is a popular example of this recently), or redirect you to a different site in order to steal your username and password. HTTP Not Secure Warning Starting July 24th, along with the launch of Google Chrome 68, Chrome will display […]

When you think about transactional messages you are probably thinking about the email receipt you get after a purchase or possibly a password reset email. But transactional messages really represent a much broader range of messaging. For marketers, there are a couple of great things about transactional messages. First, they are expected. Recipients often know they are coming and depend on them for important information. That means they often have a significantly higher open rate than marketing messages. Second, transactional messages take some of the chains off as they are […]

A Dirty Word? Let’s start with a bit of education on the topic. When I hear the word sweepstakes the first image is the memorable moment when an unknowing winner opens their front door to be greeted with a life-changing check. For those of you younger than me… you can google it. Per Wikipedia, Sweepstakes are “a type of contest where a prize or prizes may be awarded to a winner or winners.” Who doesn’t want a prize, right?! Well when sweepstakes began, they started as a lottery related […]

Attracting the right kind of leads—you know, the ones that actually want to buy something from you—is one of the B2B marketer’s biggest challenges. You can pay for clicks or you can pay for impressions, and while both options have value, neither option guarantees you a high volume of truly interested, sales-ready leads. Fortunately, getting those kinds of leads is exactly what pay per lead, or PPL, is designed for. But first… What Is Pay Per Lead Advertising? Unlike pay per click (PPC) or pay per impression […]

This story starts with t-shirts. From our A/B Test t-shirts to our I Opted In to Get This Bag totes, emfluence has a long history of spinning digital marketing lingo into apparel. We like puns and we like marketing, and if we’re going to wear shirts anyway, why not have some fun with our brand? Turns out we’re not the only ones who like our shirts, and for years people have asked us: how can I get one of those shirts for myself? So we did something a […]